Olive Garden Style Chicken and Gnocchi Soup

Olive Garden Style Chicken and Gnocchi Soup is something my boys enjoy on the rare occasions we eat out. It didn't seem overly complicated, so I went hunting on the internet and came up with two recipes. Neither seemed quite right to me, so I combined the two and tweaked it a little, and this is the result. I hope you enjoy it as much as we do. It's great for using up leftover chicken and mashed potatoes, too. I've also added a gluten free gnocchi recipe, so the recipe can be made with or without gluten.

If using freshly cooked potatoes to make your gnocchi, steam them before starting the rest of the recipe so they have time to cool.

Melt butter in a soup pot. Add in the garlic and onions and sauté, add your chicken and cook throughout.

Add flour (or cornstarch to make this gluten free) and mix well until the flour/cornstarch is cooked into the chicken.

Next add your chicken broth. Mix well, cook for a few minutes and then add the veggies (Carrots, Celery, and Spinach). Cook for about 5 minutes. While the soup is cooking, finish preparing the gnocchi of your choice.

Bring the broth to a gentle boil, add gnocchi a handful at a time and cook for about 3 minutes, stir and then add the next handful of gnocchi and repeat until all gnocchi have been added.

Reduce heat and add cream, milk, curry and pepper. Mix ingredients well. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve hot with a side salad and some freshly baked French bread.

Here's the basic potato gnocchi recipe.

Basic Potato Gnocchi

Ingredients

1/4 pounds mealy potatoes, peeled

About 1/4 cup flour (see note below)

1 egg

A pinch of salt

In making gnocchi you should steam the potatoes rather than boil them. If you do not have a steamer, put the potatoes in a metal colander, set the colander in a spaghetti pot. Fill the pot with water to just below the colander, and set the pot, covered, to boil. 1 inch chunks will cook in about 20 minutes, when a skewer penetrates but they are still firm. Mash them while they’re still hot (a potato ricer works very well here). Allow to cool. Season the potatoes with a pinch of salt and slowly knead in enough flour to obtain a fairly firm, smooth, non-sticky dough — exactly how much flour will depend upon how moist the potatoes are.

Roll the dough out into ropes about as thick as your finger, cut the ropes into 3/4 inch pieces, and gently score the pieces crosswise with a fork. Note: Since they're submerged in the soup rather than trying to hold on a sauce, you can skip this step if you like to save time.

Here are the pretty little dumplings ready to meet their fate.

And here's the end result…

Post first published Jun 30, 2009.

Update 3/10/11: Since I originally did this post, I've made this soup many times, typically the day after we have a chicken dinner with mashed potatoes (you can use the chicken carcass to make the broth, too). This dramatically cuts down on the time involved with the soup, since the chicken and potatoes are already precooked, and “chicken and gnocchi soup” goes over much better in my house than “leftover chicken and mashed potatoes”. I use a cup or two of mashed potatoes – whatever I have handy. Then I add flour, egg and sometimes some cream of wheat cereal (my mom always added cream of wheat to her potato dumplings). These little dumplings are a little more dense than the original gnocchi, but just as tasty.

Update: 2/23/15: I've been doing more gluten free cooking lately, so I hunted down a gluten free version of gnocchi.

Gluten Free Gnocchi Recipe

Steam potatoes in a similar manner to regular gnocchi. Press through a potato ricer or mash well.

Mix together the rice flour and tapioca flour.

Add 3 tablespoons of the flour mixture to the potatoes with the egg and salt. Mix together using a fork. The mixture will take on a crumbly consistency. Add 2 tablespoons of the remaining flour and blend well.

Knead the dough gently until all the flour is blended in. Stop kneading when the flour is incorporated.

After the dough is smooth, cut it into 4 equal pieces. Place one tablespoon of flour on a cutting board and roll each piece of dough into a rope about as big around as your thumb.

Cut the ropes in 3/4 inch pieces and then roll the dumpling over the tines of a fork to shape the ridges of the gnocchi. Note: Since they're submerged in the soup rather than trying to hold on a sauce, you can skip this step if you like to save time.

Instructions

If using freshly cooked potatoes to make your gnocchi, steam them before starting the rest of the recipe so they have time to cool.

Melt butter in a soup pot. Add in the garlic and onions and sauté, add your chicken and cook throughout.

Add flour (or cornstarch to make this gluten free) and mix well until the flour/cornstarch is cooked into the chicken.

Next add your chicken broth. Mix well, cook for a few minutes and then add the veggies (Carrots, Celery, and Spinach). Cook for about 5 minutes. While the soup is cooking, finish preparing the gnocchi of your choice.

Bring the broth to a gentle boil, add gnocchi a handful at a time and cook for about 3 minutes, stir and then add the next handful of gnocchi and repeat until all gnocchi have been added.

Reduce heat and add cream, milk, curry and pepper. Mix ingredients well. Cover and simmer for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. Serve hot with a side salad and some freshly baked French bread.

For gnocchi

Steam potato chunks around 20 minutes, until fork tender. Mash well or run through a potato ricer. Allow to cool.

Add salt and egg. Gently mix in flour or mix of flours with a fork. Knead dough on counter to finish, adding enough flour/flour mix to make a smooth, non-sticky dough.

Separate dough into four parts. Roll each section into a rope about as thick as your finger. Cut into 3/4 inch slices.

Comments

That looks so yummy; I am borrowing your recipe with no intentions of returning it! Although at this point I will stick with frozen yokey, I recently read a recipe for a bean gnocchi that sounded interesting as well…

i made this tonight and about knocked myself out getting seconds! so good with a few tweaks. I did not have kale so i used finely shredded baby cabbage i got from my dads garden. QUESTION – can i freeze the soup?

questions: do you really only use 1/4 pound of potatoes for the gnocchi? that doesn’t seem like much. do you weigh them before or after steaming? also I’m assuming you add the egg when kneading in the flour?